


Hate Sex & Hair Protocol

by MaddieWritesStucky (Madeleine_Ward)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky With The Good Hair, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Disaster Bi Steve Rogers, Don’t copy to another site, Explicit Language, Flirting, Humor, Lust mistaken for hatred, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, SHIELD Agent Bucky Barnes, Sexual Tension, Shrunkyclunks, thighs of betrayal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:39:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29121318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madeleine_Ward/pseuds/MaddieWritesStucky
Summary: They’re all full of shit, Steve decides.His team don’t have a clue what they’re talking about, running their mouths about the way he and Bucky look at each other; the tension that seems to be at a constant near-snapping point between them.'It’s called annoyance' Steve wants to yell in each of their faces, loud and one by one. It’s the pain of having to exist every day in close proximity with someone who drives you out of your fucking mind.---In which Steve discovers that ire and desire may just exist side by side in his brain.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 29
Kudos: 215





	Hate Sex & Hair Protocol

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Tumblr prompt game 'I wish you'd write a fic where...'
> 
> Prompt: 'I wish you would write a fic where Steve and Bucky meet on a mission and get off on entirely the wrong foot. And everyone assumes they're sleeping together because the tension is ridiculous' sent by the wonderful darter_blue
> 
> Title by buckycuddlebuddy on tumblr!

“So y’all are blowing each other, huh?” 

“What?” Steve’s head whips up to where Sam is sitting opposite him, double checking the fastenings on his suit and fixing his earpiece into place.

“You and Barnes,” Sam tips his head toward the back of the Quinjet where the brand-new recruit in question is suiting up, making Maria laugh at some undoubtedly inappropriate joke. 

There’s no inflection in the way Sam says it, and honestly, it just makes it that much worse. 

“Uh, _no?”_ Steve splutters. “What the fuck? The guy’s an asshole! You saw him out there yesterday, kid’s a fuckin’ showboat.” 

Steve’s entire face is screwed up in both utter disbelief at Sam’s assumption, and repulsion at the idea of putting his dick anywhere _near_ the new guy and his perpetually smirking mouth. 

No amount of good hair and thigh muscle and sharp-shooting can make up for an ego that size. 

As if Steve’s just going to ignore the attitude, because the guy’s the best shot he’s come across in his military career? Because he’s skilled to the point of being borderline devastating to watch? 

“Yeah, I saw him,” Sam laughs, “saw _you_ too, watchin’ it all go down with your mouth hangin’ open.” 

“I was not—”

“Are we talking about Steve eye-fucking Barnes yesterday?” Clint interrupts, flopping down onto the bench next to Steve, and Steve vehemently says _‘no!’_ at the same time Sam sighs an equally enthused _‘yup!’_

“Hey, we get it man, I’d hit it too if I were that way inclined,” Clint shrugs, entirely ignoring Steve’s protest. “The guy fills out tac pants like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“Jesus Christ,” Steve scrubs his hands up over his face. “I am not ‘hitting it’, there is no hitting, no one’s hitting.” 

“Oh, is he more into vanilla stuff?” Nat saunters over, cocking an eyebrow in Bucky’s direction. “Huh...that surprises me for some reason.” 

Steve is going to jump out of this aircraft. He’s done it before, and he’ll do it again. 

“We’re not talking about this,” he gets to his feet and takes all five of the useless steps he can to put distance between himself and his team mates. “Wheels down in five, I don’t wanna hear about this again.” 

“Hear about what?” 

...Fuck, Steve hates that he can recognize the smirk in that voice without even having to turn around and _see_ it. 

“Not your concern Barnes,” he says over his shoulder.

It comes out sharp, and he almost feels bad about it. But Bucky claps him on the shoulder and chuckles a _‘whatever you say, Cap’_ and Steve wishes he’d thrown an expletive in there too, just for good measure. 

***

They’re all full of shit, Steve decides. 

His team don’t have a clue what they’re talking about, running their mouths about the way he and Bucky look at each other; the tension that seems to be at a constant near-snapping point between them. 

_It’s called annoyance,_ Steve wants to yell in each of their faces, loud and one by one. It’s the pain of having to exist every day in close proximity with someone who drives you out of your fucking mind. 

And the worst part is, Bucky seems to think it’s some kind of joke. 

He hates Steve, and he sure as hell knows by now that Steve hates him, but he finds some sick sort of humor in it, if the constant grin and the way he outright laughs at Steve’s frustration is anything to go by. 

Bucky is probably sound asleep right now, dead to the world and dreaming his little asshole dreams, while Steve is lying here wide awake; staring at his ceiling, unable to get his mind off the image of Bucky on their last mission, pinning that quasi-Hydra goon to the ground with a knee on his chest and shouting at him in Russian. 

Steve hadn’t known Bucky could speak Russian.

His file had specified something about multiple languages, but he’d never personally told Steve everything that that encompasses, and honestly what kind of man, what kind of _soldier,_ withholds that sort of information from his team? From his _captain?_

God knows what else he could be hiding, what he could suddenly spring on Steve that might send him into a tailspin that jeopardizes his decision-making capabilities.

It’s plain dangerous, is what it is. 

Bucky fucking Barnes.

And he’s been braiding his hair, too. Not just pulling it back like Nat and Maria, keeping it tidy and tucked away at the back of his head. He’s weaving it into intricate plaits that pull all of Steve’s attention to the line of his jaw and the cut of his cheekbones, and that’s gotta be hazardous. 

There’s a reason the other long-haired members of the team don’t fuck around with braids. Steve doesn’t know what it is, but he’s sure as hell gonna find out because Bucky needs to fall in line. 

Just...the mere _idea_ that there’s some sort of...sexual tension, between him and Bucky. It’s ridiculous. 

Steve knows what horny feels like, and this ain’t it. This is something closer to ire, and Steve knows _all_ about that. 

He throws off his covers and swings his legs out of bed, huffing his annoyance into the darkness of his room as he tugs on a pair of sweats and slips on his shoes. 

It’s after two in the morning and the hallways are mercifully deserted as he makes his way down to the gym, down to work off some of the static crackling under his skin. The sensor lights flick on ahead of him as he goes, and he thinks nothing of it when he rounds the corner to the gym and sees it already lit up. 

He thinks nothing of it, until he hears the sounds of breath punching hard out of lungs and fists connecting with canvas. 

His stomach is already twisting when he pushes through the doors. There’s no way he’s _this_ unlucky, he thinks, he can’t possibly be. But then his eyes are landing on the sight of a very shirtless, very sweaty Bucky Barnes going to town on a punching bag, and Steve officially has all the evidence he needs that god does, in fact, hate him.

Bucky’s eyes flick over to him, and that stupid smirk settles itself across his mouth as he drops his hands and steps back from the bag.

“Cap, what are the chances?” he drawls, lifting his drink bottle to his lips and taking a swig. 

Steve absolutely does not watch the drop of water that slips down Bucky’s chin to join the beads of sweat on his broad chest. 

“We live in the same building, I’d say they’re pretty good.” 

Steve is shooting for attitude, but it lands more in the realm of strangled, much to his horror. He folds his arms over his chest, suddenly very conscious of the fact that he hadn’t bothered putting on a shirt. 

“Guess so,” Bucky laughs softly, his eyes raking down the length of Steve’s body as he walks slowly towards him. “What’s got you up so late? Someone on your mind?” 

He doesn’t stop until he’s got his toes right up against the edge of Steve’s personal space, his voice dipping low and his brow arching like he thinks he _knows_ something.

He doesn’t know shit, and Steve squares his jaw and he squares his shoulders, and he gives no attention to the way Bucky’s tiny shorts are hugging his massive quads. 

“I was going over my notes from the last mission,” Steve says. It’s not even entirely untrue, he reasons with himself, though it sounds like an outright lie for the way it trips over his tongue on its way out.

Bucky nods intently, fixes his face into an overly serious expression and folds his arms over his chest in a mirror of Steve’s stance. 

“Sounds serious,” he hums, even as his eyes are sparking anything but, “anything I might need to know about?” 

He shifts his weight onto his right foot and it pushes his hip out, pulls those shorts tighter across the front of his hips, and Steve’s brain blue screens for a hot second.

“Your hair is a hazard.” 

...It might be the stupidest sentence that’s ever left Steve’s mouth. 

Bucky’s eyebrows jump up and he cocks his head, his grin spreading all the way across his lips. 

“My _hair?”_

“It’s...you’ve been braiding it,” Steve fumbles, “it’s not protocol…”

Drowning, this is what drowning feels like, it has to be. Steve is taking on water and plummeting to the bottom of a churning sea of shame, and Bucky is watching it happen with a big fat smile on his face.

Fucking hair protocol, Jesus _Christ..._

“Right, of course,” Bucky lifts a hand slowly to pull out the elastic keeping his hair piled up on top of his head, sending the soft waves tumbling down around his shoulders. “And, how exactly should I be wearing it, _Captain?”_

The scent of Bucky’s shampoo hits Steve right in the face, and his breath catches. Why the fuck does a sniper need his hair to smell like vanilla? 

“You should...Nat just ties it back. It’s practical. You should keep it practical.”

“Practical,” Bucky echoes, pursing his lips. 

He takes a single step forward, just one, but it brings his body within scant inches of Steve’s; close enough that Steve can feel the heat radiating off his sweat-slick skin. 

“If that’s what you want,” Bucky shrugs, dropping his hands to his sides and letting the backs of his fingers brush Steve’s skin on their way down. “...Or maybe you’d like it better wrapped around your fist?”

...There’s a small chance that ‘ire’ and ‘horny’ may exist in close proximity in Steve’s brain. 

“That’s...is that an option?” he chokes out, unfolding his arms as his fingers flex around thin air. 

Bucky looks smug as hell, and Steve would be pissed off if he wasn’t so distracted by the way his sweatpants have grown suddenly tighter.

“Oh, it’s an option, pal,” Bucky hums, walking his fingertips up the length of Steve’s arm. “You know, I don’t know if hate sex was big in the forties, but I hear it’s quite something.” 

“I don’t hate you,” Steve says immediately, only realizing that he means it after he’s said it out loud. 

Something warm and vaguely electric is crawling up the column of his spine, flaring hotter as Bucky presses his body up against him, chest to naked chest, and Steve is not at all mad at the arrangement. 

“Oh, I know you don’t,” Bucky winks, taking hold of Steve’s hand and guiding it up to thread through his hair, “but by all means, Captain…feel free to fuck me like you do.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm maddiewritesstucky on tumblr if you wanna say hi! x


End file.
